Teacher Charged with Stalking, Making Threats

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) - A judge set bond at $100,000 on Friday for a former Thurmont Middle School teacher who was charged with stalking students.

Police charged Michelle Dohm, 40, of Thurmont, on Thursday with stalking students by leaving threatening notes, including one that read, "Tick-tock, tick-tock, is it a bomb or is it a clock?"

Dohm denied the allegations through her attorney, Thomas Morrow of Towson. He said Dohm believes she was framed and contends she did nothing wrong.

"She had no motive to commit any wrongdoing, she didn't have the ability to commit any wrongdoing and she intends to vigorously deny the charges," Morrow told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Dohm was fired from her job as a sixth-grade social studies teacher in mid-November, Frederick County State's Attorney Scott Rolle said.

The Frederick County Sheriff's Office planned to arrest Dohm after getting a warrant based on the grand jury indictment, Cpl. Jennifer Bailey said.

Rolle said the indictment charged Dohm with nine felony counts of threatening to explode a destructive device and two misdemeanor counts of stalking. The charges carry a combined maximum penalty of 100 years in prison and $100,000 in fines.

Dohm is accused of leaving or delivering threatening notes on at least five occasions from Sept. 28 through Nov. 21. The last note, found in the boy's bathroom, prompted an evacuation of the school. It read: "Tick-tock, Tick-tock, now you'll know it's a bomb and not a clock. At 12 o'clock you'll know I wasn't kidding," Rolle said.

The messages targeted four male students, two of them repeatedly, Rolle said.

In the first incident, on Sept. 28, Dohm is alleged to have given school administrators a note that she told them she got from a parent. It named two school baseball players and claimed they had been bullying the writer's son, Rolle said. He said the note also suggested searching their lockers for a knife.

Attached to the note was a message made of letters cut from magazines that spelled the words "suffer," "bound," "tied" and "die," Rolle said.

The next day, the boys named in the note reported to the school office that they'd found a knife and bottles of beer in one of their lockers, Rolle said.

A week later, a student's father found a threatening note on his van: "Play No. 20 and 24 and die," Rolle said. Those were the uniform numbers of the baseball players mentioned in the earlier note, he said.

On Oct. 17, Rolle said, four students found typed notes on their lockers, reading: "Tick-tock, tick-tock, is it a bomb or is it a clock? You ignored my note on the van. Now I will carry out my plan." Investigators learned that the notes had been printed from Dohm's school computer, Rolle said.

On Nov. 1, custodians found folded-and-stapled notes stuck in two school lockers, followed by the discovery the next day of virtually identical notes in two other lockers, Rolle said. He said each of the computer-written notes was titled "Hit list," and contained the names of at least two students, some teachers and the words, "Boom. Boom. Kill."

Rolle said Dohm was fired after those notes. In her exit interview with Superintendent Linda D. Burgee, Dohm said that if another note were found, it would prove she wasn't to blame. The last note was found in the boy's bathroom a week later, Rolle said.

Dohm taught in Frederick County schools for 18 years - four at New Market Middle School and 14 at Thurmont - said Marita Loose, a school system spokeswoman.

She said Thurmont staff members and students were told of the indictment Thursday afternoon, just before that start of the winter break.

"It's been a difficult and disruptive fall for the school," Loose said.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)